What is the Office of Child Safety?

In September 2014, Commissioner John Specia formed the Office of Child Safety to address and reduce child abuse. The Office of Child Safety's responsibilities are:

To independently analyze individual child abuse and neglect fatalities, near fatalities and serious injuries as well as look for patterns and any issues in the system.

To review state and national trends regarding child fatalities, near fatalities, and serious injuries as well as prevention programs that can be used by DFPS programs, other state agencies and local communities.

Office of Child Safety's goal is to help carry out prevention and intervention programs which address and reduce fatal and serious child abuse. To this end, the Office of Child Safety specifically works on:

Child Fatality Reviews

The Office of Child Safety conducts in-depth reviews for child fatalities occurring when the child is involved with DFPS in an open stage (Investigations, FBSS, or CVS) and the death is suspected to be from a new act of abuse or neglect. These reviews are posted once the investigation is completed and death is confirmed to be caused by abuse or neglect.